


Separate Lives

by opalmatrix



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: AU: Miami-verse, Aliases, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Crimes & Criminals, Lawyers, Other, Prison, Secret Identity, Social Justice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:43:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/pseuds/opalmatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kole's life as a struggling activist lawyer is complicated enough without mysterious bad news for his favorite client and odd behavior from his usually dependable partner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Separate Lives

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 3 of [**weissvsaiyuki**](http://weissvsaiyuki.livejournal.com/). Prompt: _"What We Do is Secret" - We're not everything you think we are. Or are we?_ Thanks to [**indelicateink**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/indelicateink) for inventing [Miamiverse](http://indelicateink.livejournal.com/313888.html), and to **[emungere](http://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere)** and **[lady_ganesh](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh)** for getting the ball rolling. Beta by **[smillaraaq](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Smillaraaq/)**.

A visit to Bonaire State Prison was usually depressing but predictable. Kole extracted a notepad, two pens, and a bag of spicy pumpkin seeds from his small briefcase, his bar association card and his driver's license from his wallet, and checked the rest with the front desk officer. The fellow picked up the desk phone and called for an escort. The guard who showed up to do the honors was Marcus Dawkins. Kole was surprised. "Aren't you usually on the morning shift, Mr. Dawkins?"

Dawkins waved him through the door. "Yeah, Chatman came down with something. Probably food poisoning. I'm kinda surprised to see you here too, Mr. Guerra."

Kole followed him into the hallway that led to the cellblocks and the secure visiting rooms. "Why is that? We phoned ahead."

"Your partner lady was here this morning."

Kole made a surprised face at Dawkins' back. Yola hadn't said a thing about visiting Garcia today. "Oh, yes. Ms. Owens told me that Mr. Garcia needed some additional information. I've brought it for him."

"You don't need to tell me your business," said Dawkins, calmly. He was a decent man, unlike most of the guards. The brush-cut, pasty thug standing over Garcia in the soundproof room was a more typical specimen. He scowled at Kole, grunted, and followed Dawkins out, but not before Kole heard him mutter "Snot-nose spic lawyer" under his breath. Kole shook his head as the door was locked behind them.

"Sorry about that," said Garcia. He looked tired and pale, and he was already light-skinned for a Latino, much more so than Kole.

"Sadly, most prison guards are not hired for their intelligence or congeniality," answered Kole, sitting down opposite him at the small table bolted to the floor. It was empty except for a couple of plastic cups of water, too light and flimsy to be of use as weapons. He laid out his notepad, pens, and cards, then pushed the bag of pumpkin seeds at Garcia. "From Yola."

Garcia's eyes flickered briefly. Kole suppressed the urge to ask why Yola had visited him this morning. "You said you had something important to tell me."

"To show you," corrected Garcia. He hunched his strong shoulders and reached for something in his lap. It turned out to be a small blue, squarish envelope, somewhat battered, addressed to _Doug Garcia_ at the prison. The postmark was from some town Kole did not recognize, in Florida. The envelope had been torn open, and the contents looked to be a greeting card. Kole held out his hand, and Garcia passed it to him.

Kole opened it carefully, holding it by the edges as much as possible, wishing he had brought some gloves. Inside was a card with a picture of a rabbit half-hidden underneath some bushes. A typed note had been taped to the interior:

> _Your brother has been asking for a current picture of you. We're sending a photographer to take one. Behave yourself, Big Jim: he's not the only one who's interested in you._

Kole peered beneath the taped paper, which had been cut roughly from a larger sheet. The card had no sentiment printed inside. The back had notations indicating that the card had been printed on behalf of a well-known environmental organization: the sort of thing that might be sent to a large number of postal patrons as part of a fundraising drive. The handwritten address on the envelope was a messy, half-printed scrawl, possibly written by the left hand of a right-handed person, and there was no return address. "Why does it address you as 'Big Jim'? And you didn't tell me you had a brother."

Garcia sighed and rubbed his face. There were shadows underneath his dark eyes. "I had a foster-brother. He might've been my half-brother, but my mom was such a mess: I never could figure out when she telling the truth or just spouting off."

"'Jim' isn't a nickname for Douglas."

"No."

Kole stared at him. "Garcia, if you have some idea what this is about, perhaps you'd better explain. We can't help you without more information. It sounds like this is a warning, or even a threat."

"Yeah, it's a threat." Garcia often looked sad, but usually there was a trace of humor too, despite the fact that Kole and Yola had been unsuccessful in getting him released for six months now. It hurt to see him this far down. "OK. So, my real name isn't Douglas Garcia."

Kole jotted down a question mark and an equals sign: his shorthand for an alias or street name. "What, then?"

Garcia sighed. "Jaime Salvaje," he said.

The name rang a bell somewhere, but Kole couldn't put a finger on it. He wrote it down and waited.

"So — back in Aurora, when I was a kid, this baby showed up. Mom was already using, on top of her drinking. I think she got money for keeping the kid. He was kinda cute, and she treated him like shit. I ended up taking care of him an awful lot of the time. It was tough 'cause I was trying to stay in school: Dad wasn't around much, and I wanted to get a job as soon as I could, take care of Mom and Jacky. That's what we called the little boy. I don't know if that was his real name."

"You said you were from Chicago. That's what's on the record."

"Well, it's a suburb, you know? But who around here knows where Aurora is, right? So I'm from Chicago."

"All right. So where is your foster brother now?"

"Mr. Guerra, I have no idea."

"You weren't looking for him?"

Garcia was silent, his eyes on the tabletop.

"So you were called Big Jim when you were a youngster, back in Aurora?"

"It's what Jacky called me. When we were alone."

"So whoever sent this note has actually talked to your brother."

"Yeah. Sounds like it."

"There's something else you aren't telling me, Mr. Garcia. How old was this child when he came to your home? How old would he be now?"

"He was big enough to walk and talk, but not much. I guess he's maybe nineteen or twenty now."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Maybe ten years ago."

Garcia would have been about sixteen, the child about ten. "Then what?"

Silence. Kole shook his head. "This isn't much to go on, Mr. Garcia."

Garcia looked up at last. "Lola Salvaje."

"What?"

"Mom's name. Look it … up. I can't … can't talk about it. I'm dead, Mr Guerra. I'm so dead."

He really looked broken. Kole wanted to get up, go to him, wrap his arms around those broad shoulders. But he couldn't. The video feed the guards would be watching wouldn't allow lip reading, but it would show an embrace. And there was the whole client-attorney thing. Kole wrote down the name and sighed, at last. "I'll look it up, Mr. Garcia."

On the drive back to the office, his mind was racing in circles. Garcia wasn't Garcia. He was more than a man who'd been unjustly accused of multiple counts of battery and kidnapping: there was something else in his past, a crime that trumped those charges, at least in Garcia's mind. There was a younger brother — half or foster — whose existence somehow threatened revelations regarding this past.

He parked outside the dumpy little office building on the outskirts of Atlanta, dashed up the stairs to their little suite, and strode past Kevin the law clerk to drop into the chair in front of their legal research terminal. _Lola Salvaje._ Nothing. So try the likely full name. _Dolores Salvaje._

Murdered. Ten years ago. Cold case. Murderer never found.

"Kole?"

He swung around, his jaw tight. Yola looked anxious and startled. "What are you doing?" she asked.

He stared at her, then gestured at the screen. "Did you know about this?"

She leaned over and peered at the text. "Salvaje? That's — "

"Yes?" If she notice the coldness in his voice, it wasn't obvious from her reaction. Her gaze remained on the screen. She said, "The case was never solved. The victim's teenaged son — "

"Jaime Salvaje."

"I — "

"You know him. You were visiting him this morning."

She looked at him, speechless, and then glanced at Kevin. Kole sighed and reached for a notepad, then jotted down the case particulars. "Kevin. Take my office. I want printouts from any microfiche records you can get on this case. Call the applicable state DA's office and the Feds. Thanks."

Kevin went, prudently closing the office door behind him. Kole turned back to Yola. She perched on the edge of the desk, her shoulders hunched. "Well, Yola?"

She bit her lip and then straightened and looked him right in the eye. "If we manage to get him out, we're going to be married."

"That's damned unprofessional behavior, Owens."

"I know that!"

"Did you know about his connection with this?"

"No, just that his name wasn't really Douglas Garcia. He told me that this morning. I said I would have to tell you, and he said he was going to tell you himself. I guess he did, didn't he?"

Kole sat back in his chair, slightly mollified. "Yes." Then he sighed and touched her wrist gently, his fingers bright copper against her dark bronze. "He's very attractive, I agree."

"Does he know you think that?"

"He has enough problems, without having his gay Hispanic lawyer lusting after him."

"In addition to his black lawyer having a crush on him," said Yola, calmly. "Are we sure that this Dolores is his mother?"

"He was telling me something of his family history, and told me to look up his mother, Lola Salvaje. He was deeply distressed."

"How did this come up?"

"Our client got a disturbing piece of mail yesterday." Kole handed her the blue envelope. She examined it, opened it, read through the contents. "Big Jim?"

"Apparently that's what the younger brother called him, privately."

"He never mentioned a brother."

"It seems that the mother took in a foster child for the money. She treated the boy badly. Garcia was fond of the kid and hasn't seen him for ten years."

"Since the mother's death," said Yola, slowly. "That summary said that the victim's teenaged son —"

"Disappeared. Last seen at his after-school job as a stock boy at a local convenience store, the previous afternoon. The police were called to investigate when the younger boy never showed up at school."

"What happened to the child?"

"Taken into police custody, then apparently handed off to a legal guardian."

"Who?"

"It doesn't say. I'm hoping the information that Kevin is obtaining will give us a clue."

"So … someone is threatening to reveal Doug's connection to this woman's death. His mother."

"So it seems. Someone in Florida."

"Tequesta."

"You've heard of it."

"It's north of Miami."

Kole frowned. "What's wrong with Miami?" asked Yola. "Aside from being a wretched hive of scum and villainy."

He sighed. "Yola, did it ever occur to you that someone who came from Colombia might not actually be named 'Kole'?"

"Wow, this is a day of revelations. So what is your real identity, Mr. Guerra?"

"Cayo Gael Guerra. Son of Reyes Guerra."

Yola slumped against the desk. "So Guadelupe Cosmano de Guerra … ?"

"Is my stepmother. If I start investigating in the Miami area … ."

"Holy crap. The Queen of Blow. Well. It's a good thing that I am actually, really, indubitably Yolanda Clivette Owens."

"Yola … "

"If you need someone to go to Miami to check out something, Kole, I'm the designated hitter."

"I don't like it."

"It's my business too, Kole."

Kole sighed. "Yes. I suppose it is."

 


End file.
